$~~~~$One fine morning in 1941, Swiss engineer George de Mestral went for a walk in the woods with his dog. Upon their return home, he found a lot of burrs (from plants) stuck to the dog’s fur and his pants. He immediately rushed to his microscope and examined the burrs attached on his pants—feeling a lightbulb moment coming on.
$~~~~$Upon closer examination, de Mestral observed that the burrs, which appeared straight to the naked eye, actually contained many small hooks that clung firmly to the loops in the fabric of his pants. He determined that if he could recreate the same thing, making hooks-and-loops that bind to each other firmly, he could produce a strong fastener with many uses.
$~~~~$De Mestral’s first challenge was finding a fabric for a strong bonding system. He first tried cotton, but it proved too soft and could not withstand repeated openings and closures. After years of research and testing, he learned that synthetics worked best and eventually settled on heat-treated nylon, a strong and durable substance. By 1955, he had completed an improved version of the product, with each square inch of material containing 300 hooks, which made it stay fastened and yet easy enough to pull apart when needed. Named “Velcro,” from the French words velours (velvet) and crochet (hook), the new product received a patent from the Swiss government in 1955. De Mestral thus began mass-producing Velcro, opening plants in Europe and eventually into Canada and the United States. Initially Velcro did not fare well. As most fashion critics considered it ugly and cheap-looking, the use of Velcro was limited to athletic equipment. In the early 1960s, the product received a huge boost in popularity when NASA began using it in a lot of equipment that went into space along with astronauts. Today, de Mestral’s design is found almost everywhere: clothing and footwear, toys, airline seat cushions, blood pressure cuffs and surgeons’ gowns. Most impressively, the magical fastener was used in the first human artificial heart transplantation to hold together parts of the device.